Musings by me, myself and occasionally I. Be prepared for anything from sport to current affairs, politics to just real life. I hope you enjoy and thank you in advance for reading

Thursday, 16 May 2013

The future of press regulation......we need to talk a bit more!

Regular viewers of my
Twitter feed can’t help but notice I have had, for me, a rather engrossing
discussion with Dr Evan Harris from Hacked Off this week.

What started off as
rather heated actually became an interesting to and fro between two people at the
opposite ends of the regulation scale, me opposed to Hacked Off, him opposed to
some of my profession.

But do you know what? I
get it, I get Hacked Off and their campaign now and certainly their calls for a
Royal Chater.

The Newspaper Society’s
plan is OK but fails on one key area, power would pretty much still be in
national newspapers and proprietors hands. We have lost that right to govern
ourselves now given phone hacking, given the flagrant bending of the Contempt
of Court Act and given the rush for a headline.

Hacked Off are right on
that respect, we need independent self regulation and I repeat what I called
for in an earlier blog and echo now what Hacked Off, an independent board to
rule on complaints.

Hacked Off’s briefing
note was sent to editor’s like myself in the week and unlike what the national
press say, is not a scaremongering tactic but quite a thought provoking rebuttal.

For example, the
Newspaper Society state that should the Royal Charter go ahead, the principle of
a free press not subject to Parliamentary statute would be conceded. Erm, no
because as the briefing note points out, we journalists are already governed by
Contempt of Court Act, Defamation Act, Data Protection Act and of course the
Human Rights Act!

All of these benefit my
profession greatly if you abide by them, think about all those FOI’s – would not
have happened without the Freedom of Infomation Act!

Contempt of Court is a
biggie, every journalist should be able to recite it backwards because its
common sense, basically don’t do anything until the jury have heard EVERYTHING!

Sadly, in the case of Chris
Jeffries, the landlord of the flats where Joanna Yates lived before her brutal
murder, contempt of court went out the window. The national media were branding
him ‘weird’ and ‘a peeping tom’ – all of which wholly untrue and slanderous.

All of which prayed on
the fact you can say what you want before a suspect is charged and the case
becomes active. His life was spilled on the front pages and he was only being
questioned! A process which happens every day, suspects are brought in and
often ruled out.

Hacking is a cancer which
needs to be nuked big time (another good idea from Hacked Off being £1million
damages by the way)

But national newspapers
need to remember the contempt of court act, let every man have his day in court
(innocent until proven guilty) and if guilty then rake it all up.

I still have worries
about the Royal Charter, such as the possibility of rampant compensation claims
from past stories. I accept Hacked Off’s assertions but everyone knows if a law
is in place it probably can be ‘intepreted’ in 40 different ways. For example
did anyone ever imagine the Human Rights Act would keep terrorism suspects in
the UK?

There is good and bad in
each proposal being put forward. I hope my profession perhaps grows up a bit
and sits down with people such as Dr Harris who can deliver throughtful and
analytical prose.

Because if any national
colleagues are listening, we can still be free and able to stand as the ‘fourth
estate’, but boys and girls we do need to grow up a bit!